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Friday, October 16, 2009

The Phillies could only muster one run on today’s game against the Dodgers. You kind of had the feeling that one run wouldn’t do it for the Phillies today. Pedro Martinez pitched about as good of a game as you could want a starter to pitch for the Phils. He was pulled after the 7th and only 87 pitches by Charlie Manuel for Chan Ho Park. This is when the Dodger blue seized the moment to come back in this game.

Pedro had a two hitter at the point he was pulled, yet previously they had pitched him into the 130 plus pitches area in his last start for the Phillies. It was his game to lose today really, but he just didn’t get that chance from Charlie Manuel. Let alone this marvelous pitching by Pedro, the Phillies couldn’t really get anything going on offense as Rollins, Werth, Ibanez, and Feliz all together had 0 hits. You just can’t win ballgames like this. The Phillies had only won 2 out of 14 games in the regular season when they only scored 1 run in the game. The other 12 games were losses for them.

Then there was a throwing error for the second straight game by Chase Utley, he threw a tailor made double play ball way wide and over the head of Ryan Howard much like he did the night before. He wasn’t really rushed that much on this play, and it looked very odd they way this error occurred. That shouldn’t make or break a game though, and I blame the offense for not producing anything but a Ryan Howard homerun in this loss today.

The series now comes to Philly on Sunday night with the off day tomorrow in Philly, it’s supposed to be bad weather all weekend. We’ll see what happens with the conditions as it leads up to game time on Sunday. It’s bound to be cold, and damp at a minimum.

The Phillies could have been up 2-0 going back to Philly, that would have been sweet. We’ll settle for the split though as they couldn’t have been down 2-0 also. It’s up to Cliff Lee in Game 3 to show the Phillies more of his Cy Young like style. We’re counting on him to pitch well and the offense to get back on track in Game 3.

Phillies batting in the NLCS 2009

Carlos Ruiz

3-5

.600

Ryan Howard

3-6 (3 RBI)

.500

Raul Ibanez

2-7

.286

Shane Victorino

2-9

.222

Chase Utley

1-8

.125

As you can see, the Phillies need to get it going more on offense in this series if they expect to win it. The fifth best hitter is just .125 in Utley who is quietly having the worst series of his career so far. Jason Werth is an astounding 0-6 for the Phils so far. He couldn’t get anything started in LA, hopefully he’ll pickup in Philly where he left off.